Videos of talks

Last week, I mentioned that I gave a talk at SETI Institute, my host institution on my research about my research in the field of multiple asteroid systems. The talk was recorded and it can be seen on line on the SETI website or directly here. You can subscribe to the lecture video channel (and know when a new video is available) via iTunes or RSS.

With my colleagues at UC-Berkeley, we are organizing a monthly colloquium series under the auspice of the Year of Astronomy 2009. On January 17, Geoff Marcy gave a talk on “The Search for Habitable Planets and Life in the Universe” and more recently, Eliot Quataert described “Black Holes: Monsters Lurking at the Centers of Galaxies”. The videos can be found at the bottom of this web page.

Talks like these ones are definitely important to communicate our research to our colleagues and to the general public, but it also force us to clarify and organize our ideas. I was very glad to have used this analogy with “wedding cake” in my talk to explain the progression of my research for instance. You may notice that we are trying as such animations and videos as possible since they help to illustrate but also make the talk more entertaining. I remember when I was a graduate student, most of the talks were given on a projector writing notes on a transparent papaer… I still have some of them, especially the ones I used to give my first talk in 1997 at the departamento de Astronomia of the UNAM (University of Mexico). I will scan a few of them to put them on this blog, just for fun and comparison.

Tomorrow, after I am done moving back in my house (a 2 months remodeling, so fun…), I will give you a few tips about the comet Lulin which can be seen in the sky now.

About Franck Marchis

Dr. Franck Marchis is a Senior Researcher and Chair of the Exoplanet Group at the Carl Sagan Center of the SETI Institute since July 2007. Over the past 19 years, he has dedicated his research to the study of our solar system, specifically the search for asteroids with moons, using mainly ground-based telescopes equipped with adaptive optics.
More recently, he has been also involved in the definition of new generation of AOs for 8 -10 m class telescopes and future Extremely Large Telescopes. He has developed algorithms to process and enhance the quality of images, both astronomical and biological.
His currently involved in the Gemini Planet Imager Exoplanet Survey, which consists in imaging exoplanets using an extreme AO system for the Gemini South telescope. This new instrument is capable of imaging and recording spectra of young Jupiter-like exoplanets orbiting around nearby stars.